A&M feeling all right with its lefthanded rotation

John Doxakis gets the start for the Aggies as Texas A&M plays Indiana at Disch-Falk Field in Austin in the first round of the NCAA Regional playoffs on June 1, 2018.

Photo: Tom Reel, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

COLLEGE STATION — Rob Childress is not only Texas A&M’s baseball coach but also a college baseball historian, so he was armed with a blast from the past when asked about his bevy of southpaw starters.

“First time since 1993 that Texas A&M has gone with an all-lefthanded rotation,” Childress said Thursday, as the Aggies prepared for their season opener on Friday night against Fordham at Blue Bell Park.

A&M fans with long memories hope this season turns out like that one. The ’93 Aggies finished 53-11 and made the College World Series, also the last time A&M won a CWS game. The Aggies have made it to Omaha, Neb., three times since, with two of those appearances under Childress, who’s entering his 14th season at A&M.

As always in mid-February, optimism reigns across college baseball, and the Aggies are no different than anyone else. Their difference comes in a staff loaded with lefthanders, nine in all, including opening-weekend starters John Doxakis, Asa Lacy and Jonathan Childress.

“We’ve signed quite a few talented lefthanders out of Texas high schools over the course of the last 12 or 13 years, but more often than not we didn’t get them to campus — they got the opportunity to start a professional career,” Childress said. “But in the last two years we’ve been able to get these guys to campus, and they’re guys we’re going to lean on in a big way throughout the course of the season.”

The Aggies are picked fifth in the seven-team SEC West in a preseason poll of the league’s 14 coaches, behind LSU, Mississippi, Arkansas and Auburn and ahead of Mississippi State and Alabama. A&M placed two players on the All-SEC preseason second team: Doxakis and shortstop Braden Shewmake.

A&M outfielder Logan Foster said the players new and old are undaunted by polls having them down in the SEC pecking order or on the outside looking in among the preseason top 25 teams. For instance, the Aggies are No. 30 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.

“We have quite a few guys who came back and also a few new guys who can swing the sticks and play their positions really well,” Foster said. “That’s one thing about this season — we have a lot of depth at every position.”

The Aggies, who lost in the Austin regional of the NCAA tournament last season, return five position players who started at least 50 percent of their games last season, including Shewmake (.327 with a team-high 45 RBIs) and Foster (.314 with a team-high eight home runs).

A&M is typically solid on the mound under Childress, who also serves as pitching coach, but the Aggies must replace plenty of good arms from last season, notably starters Mitchell Kilkenny and Stephen Kolek and relievers Nolan Hoffman, Cason Sherrod and Kaylor Chafin.

Lefthanders in college baseball often aren’t known for overpowering fastballs, but that’s also what makes this staff a bit different, both Childress and Foster said.

“Having these lefties in our back pockets — and having guys who can throw anywhere from 92-95 (mph) is huge for us,” Foster said. “To bring them into tight situations and also play the matchup game can be very beneficial. That’s something we didn’t have last year.”

Childress said foes will have to mull their weekend lineups in facing the Aggies’ first all-lefty rotation since Jeff Granger, Trey Moore and Kelly Wunsch pushed the program to Omaha 26 years ago. All three later made the big leagues.

“It’s going to force some opposing teams to decide what they want to do with their lineups coming into the series,” Childress said. “It’s, ‘Are we going to play our best lineup, or play our righthanded lineup against all of these lefthanded pitchers?’ Are we willing to go the whole weekend without playing our best lefthanded bats?’”

The Aggies play their first 10 games of the season at home in the span of 13 days, before taking part in the Shriners College Classic at Minute Maid Park from March 1-3. A&M, which played in the Southwest Conference and Big 12 prior to entering the SEC in 2012, will face former league foes Baylor, TCU and Houston in the Astros’ stadium.

The Aggies will try to host an NCAA tournament regional for the first time since 2016, although A&M won a regional at UH two years ago and then hosted a super regional against Davidson in advancing to the CWS.

Brent Zwerneman is a staff writer for the Houston Chronicle and chron.com covering Texas A&M athletics. He is a graduate of Oak Ridge High School and Sam Houston State University, where he played baseball.

Brent is the author of four published books about Texas A&M, three related to A&M athletics. He’s a four-time winner of APSE National Top 10 writing awards for the San Antonio Express-News, including a second-place finish for breaking the Dennis Franchione “secret newsletter” scandal in 2007.

His coverage of Texas A&M’s move to the SEC from the Big 12 also netted a third-place finish nationally in 2012. Brent met his wife, KBTX-TV news anchor Crystal Galny, in the Dixie Chicken before an A&M-Texas Tech football game in 2002, and the couple has three children: Will, Zoe and Brady.